Die packaging has continued to receive a significant amount of attention from designers and manufacturers of electronic products. This attention is based upon the market demand for products with greater efficiency, higher performance, and smaller dimensions. The market demand for smaller dimensions is driven, to at least some extent, by portable electronic product applications, such as Implantable Medical Devices (IMDs).
As the dimensions of an IMD package becomes smaller and smaller, and as more and more components are added to such a device, the area within the IMD package that is available for the additional components is substantially reduced. Furthermore, as the dimensions of the components are also shrinking, it is desirable to improve the use of all three dimensions within the IMD package. While die packages that improve the utilization of all three dimensions within electronic packages have been designed and manufactured, including portable electronic packages such as IMD packages, further improvements are sought to the die package and the methods of forming the die package. For example, designers and manufactures seek improvements in the efficiency and cost effectiveness of flip chip die packages and the methods of forming these flip chip die packages.
High voltage and high power die present additional challenges in packaging since such die frequently have an electrical contact on both sides of the die. High power/voltage die refers to an electronic component or device that is operable with a potential greater than about fifty (50) volts across any two electrical terminals or contacts of the component. Such high power/voltage components may be further operable at DC voltages greater than about one hundred (100) volts, and even further may be operable at DC voltages greater than about three hundred (300) volts, five hundred (500) volts, one thousand (1,000) volts and even greater, perhaps as great as 1600 volts or more.
Such high power/voltage components include, but are not limited to, high voltage die and high voltage surface mount components. Such components have two or more electrical contact regions associated therewith. Such contact regions may be located anywhere on the component, (e.g., top, bottom, edge, etc.). High power/voltage die refers generally to a solid state switching device, capacitor, resistor, rectifier, or any other solid-state electronic device formed using semiconductor processing techniques. For example, high power/voltage die may include devices such as field effect transistors (FETs), metal oxide semiconductor FETs (MOSFETs), insulated gate FETs (IGFETs), thyristors, bipolar transistors, diodes, MOS-controlled thyristors, resistors, etc. Further characteristics of high power/voltage dice may include the ability to switch or conduct large currents, vertical current flow from the bottom or backside of the die to the top or the front side of the die, and/or active pads or contacts on both the top and bottom surfaces of the dice, for example.
Therefore a preferred solution to chip scale packaging of high power/voltage die has been to wire bond the die to a substrate and have a dielectric insulator applied around and above the die. U.S. Pat. No. 6,057,175, which is assigned to the assignee of the instant invention, shows such an arrangement, but this packaging technique increases the size of the die area on the substrate as well as the height of the overall package. Thus there exists the need for a flip-chip approach including a dielectric coating for high power/voltage devices.
In view of the foregoing, it should be appreciated that it would be desirable to provide a method for forming a die package, including a flip chip package. In addition, it would be desirable to improve the method for forming a die package, such as improving the efficiency and cost effectiveness of such method. Furthermore, additional desirable features will become apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art from the foregoing background of the invention and following summary, brief description of the drawings, detailed description of the drawings, and appended claims.